“I am truly sensible of the high honor the Congress has done me. But I tell you now, I do not think myself equal to the command I am honored with.” – John Adams (2008)
George Washington.
What a dude.
Washington was called up to lead the Continental Army. Why? Everyone knew him, and most people liked him, and if they didn’t, they trusted him. He had also killed a lot of French, so that was another plus. George took up the sword.
Then, after winning, and being the most popular guy in the 13 colonies?
He put the sword down. This wasn’t totally unprecedented in history, but the numbers of men with enough strength to put down power after having wielded it is a pretty small club. There is Washington, there is Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus, and you could make the case for Sulla and Diocletian, but it’s still a pretty small club.
He attended the Constitutional Convention and served as the leader. As the delegates wrote the Constitution, they looked to Washington and wrote the job with the questions WWGWD? firmly in mind.
Why did Washington not take power? He believed more in being American than being the boss. Washington was later elected the first president, and that was after not campaigning, saying he’d rather someone else do the job, and wrote to a friend that his feelings on being elected were, “not unlike those of a culprit who is going to the place of his execution.”
He didn’t like the job, and had to be convinced to not take his name out of contention for his second term. But when it was the third time to elect a president, he made it clear that he was done. It wasn’t a prize Washington sought, it was a duty he wasn’t keen on.
Someone will mention the Whiskey Rebellion. Washington personally took the field during the rebellion, and did so to protect the country: without rules, there would be no future for the country. Of the two people sentenced to death, Washington pardoned both, and in fact pardoned every American who requested a pardon.
Two terms became a precedent, and George Washington became the model for an American.
The next real crisis the Republic hit was Civil War 1.0. In this case, I’ll argue that both sides fought out of a shared conviction regarding what it meant to be an American. Robert E. Lee, for instance, was Revolutionary War Lt. Col. “Light Horse” Harry Lee’s son. Light Horse Harry was friends with Washington and idolized him.
What was clear, though, is that once Civil War 1.0 was over, it was over. The North and South reknitted the relationship. Was it sometimes ugly? Yes. But Brigadier General Nathan Bedford Forrest III was killed when his bomber crashed in 1943, and Stonewall Jackson’s great-grandson’s fighter was shot down in 1944. Oh, and Patton’s grandfather was a colonel in the 22nd Virginia.
We got over it. We were still Americans. We shared the same civic virtues, the same blood as the founding stock, and would pick up Washington’s sword when called.
So American that when it came time for World War I mobilization, Americans signed up. World War I was an entirely unnecessary conflict from a strategic American standpoint, yet they learned to bayonet for a foreign king against a kaiser.
How American were Americans? Until Germany declared war on the United States, Charles Lindbergh had argued that entering the war in Europe was not in the interests of the United States. After declaration of war, however, he was turned down when he tried to sign up.
Regardless, Lindbergh flew over 50 combat missions in the Pacific. As a civilian. Because? Charles Lindbergh. Duh.
The whole thing started to fall apart in Vietnam. It was a war fought poorly by leadership that didn’t want to win on behalf of foreign governments that were only notable when they weren’t being amazingly corrupt. Lots of brave men bled there.
Still, we could have “won”. But the media shifted away from national solidarity towards blatant GloboLeftism.
American idealism evaporated and was replaced by a constant drumbeat of American villainy started in the 1970s and continued through the 1990s. American soldiers being awful were shown in countless movies like Platoon. The “grab a beer and a chick and let’s party” music of the 1980s was replaced by the “I need a new antidepressant because someone was mean” music of the 1990s and the “I’ma gonna killa white man” rap.
The scene was set for the final betrayal.
9/11. The September 11 attacks and their aftermath represented the final era “American” enlistment. Former NFL player Pat Tillman quit his NFL® job to enlist following 9/11, but ultimately grew disillusioned with the war in Afghanistan. Despite a good start, it soon became clear that we weren’t serious about the war, at all.
A far lesser George, George W. Bush, said that “They hate us for our freedoms”, “Islam is peace” and “Acts of violence against innocents violate the fundamental tenets of the Islamic faith”.
Did he ever hear about the stories actually in the Koran where their prophet ordered dozens of people assassinated? And also ordered the “peaceful beheading” of 600-900 men in Medina in one shot? Acts of violence are the fundamental tenets of that faith.
In a real nation, they would have been rounded up, and every non-European whose first language wasn’t English who was in America would have been shipped out on September 12. But no. We get W. telling everyone that if a person in the world will buy a Coke© then they’re just as American as you, bigot.
That was when we could see, finally, that America was no longer serious. We sent our troops out for a war on an abstract mass noun, terror. A twenty-year war that cost trillions and has (checks chart) only resulted in bringing in more foreigners who hate the horribly oppressive country that they fought to get in to.
Washington put the sword down to forge the identity of what an American was. At some point, someone has to pick it up to protect America.
